It was too quiet underground.
The subway tunnel had long since been abandoned—no trains, no signals, just dust, broken tracks, and water dripping steadily from above. The deeper we walked, the heavier the air got. Thick with old rust, old secrets, and something else.
Expectation.
Echo walked ahead of me, flashlight in one hand, the other always resting near a weapon I couldn't see but was sure existed. She never asked if I was okay. Never explained where we were going.
She just moved, and I followed.
My ribs still ached from the League net. My head was fuzzy from the energy I'd blasted out yesterday. But I kept walking.
Because something about this felt bigger than me now.
And because deep down, I didn't want to go back to the surface.
Not yet.
We turned a corner and stepped through an opening sealed with an old maintenance door. Behind it was… something I didn't expect.
A room.
Big. Crude. But lived-in.
Generators hummed softly in the corners. There were power cables strung along the ceiling. Shelves lined with scavenged tech. A table piled with maps, tags, and printed photos of League teams. On one wall, a giant screen played a looping feed of the city from hacked surveillance drones.
Four people were already there.
All of them turned when we entered.
They didn't speak.
They just looked.
Like they were measuring me.
Echo nodded once. "He's the one from Riverside."
One of them, a tall guy with copper skin and a cybernetic eye, raised a brow. "The League's golden girl tried to bag you. You stayed standing. That earns a seat."
"Name?" another asked, a girl with silver piercings and tattoos that moved.
I hesitated.
Then shrugged. "Doesn't matter yet."
She smirked. "Fair."
Echo dropped into a chair at the edge of the table and motioned for me to sit. I did.
The others followed.
She looked around the room.
"This is him. The one with the blast energy."
"Telekinetic," said the guy with the eye. "Or field generation."
"Still unstable," the girl muttered. "He's shaking."
I wasn't. But I let it go.
"Who are you people?" I asked.
Echo looked at me. "We're what happens when you say no to both sides."
They called themselves The Nulls.
Not a gang.
Not a militia.
Not heroes.
Just… powered people who walked away.
Some were ex-League. Some were former Rogues. Some were never in either.
They lived underground. Off the grid. Used what scraps they could salvage to watch the world above—and stay ahead of it.
"We're not trying to save the city," Echo said. "We're trying to survive it."
"Why bring me here?" I asked.
"Because they won't stop," said the guy with the eye. "The League doesn't forgive embarrassment. Especially not public ones."
"She was about to net you," said the tattooed girl. "Then you held your own. That puts you on a list."
"Which list?" I asked.
"The short one," Echo said. "The one where you either get forced in… or erased."
I sat back.
Tried to breathe slowly.
My power hummed again. Like it was reacting to my thoughts.
Or maybe my fear.
"Why do you care?" I asked. "You're hiding."
"We're not hiding," Echo said. "We're waiting."
"For what?"
She stared at me. "A shift."
They didn't push me to join.
Didn't offer me a jacket or a secret handshake.
They just let me sit. Watch. Listen.
They showed me footage.
Not the edited League clips from the news. Raw files. Real missions. What happened when the cameras weren't rolling.
I saw heroes knock down buildings to catch a purse thief.
I saw teams ignoring cries for help because it wasn't their "zone."
I saw someone like me—young, scared, newly powered—try to run from a patrol.
He didn't make it.
They called it "non-lethal containment."
It looked like a war crime.
By the time the screen went dark, I wasn't hungry anymore.
"I didn't ask for this," I said.
Echo nodded. "None of us did."
I stood. Pacing now.
"This isn't just about sides anymore."
"No," said the girl. "It's about survival. And power. Who gets to decide what it means?"
"Then we change the rules."
They all looked at me.
"Big words," the guy with the eye muttered.
I pointed at the screen. "They get to define what a 'hero' looks like. The Rogues get to claim freedom. But both sides are using fear to get what they want."
Echo tilted her head.
"And what do you want?"
I didn't have a perfect answer.
But I knew what I didn't want.
"I don't want to be anyone's tool."
That night, I didn't leave.
They gave me a cot. It wasn't clean. The sheets were scratchy. But I slept harder than I had in days.
No glowing dreams.
No phantom watchers.
Just quiet.
The first real quiet since the vending machine exploded.
The next day, Echo took me topside.
But only partway.
An alley behind a mechanic shop. A metal door hidden in a loading bay. She opened it with her handprint.
"Trust doesn't come easy down here," she said.
"I noticed."
"You're still deciding who you are. We're watching."
I leaned against the brick wall. "That sounds… threatening."
She smirked. "It's protection. Whether you know it or not, people are listening to your story."
"What story?"
"The one you haven't finished writing."
We walked through the city.
She pointed out League cameras. Rogue tags on alley walls. Secret routes between rooftops. Dead drops used by defectors.
"Everyone's marking territory," she said.
"And the Nulls?"
"We don't own land. We observe it. Wait for it to shift."
"And then what?"
"Then we move."
Before she left, she handed me a pin.
Small. Brass.
A triangle inside a circle. A line through the center.
The same symbol I'd seen in the train yard.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Something old," she said. "Something true."
And then she was gone.
I walked home slowly.
People bustled around me.
Normal people.
No sparks in their blood. No notes on their door. No League drones watching from above.
But me?
I wasn't normal anymore.
And I never would be again.
That night, I held the pin in my hand.
The symbol was warm.
I didn't know what I was becoming.
But I knew what I wasn't.
I wasn't theirs.